This is the Place Where I Love You
by Chokopoppo
Summary: "You never forget the face of the person who was your last hope." MCU characters - Hunger Games AU. The Third Quarter Quell begins.
1. Prologue

The Capitol grows incessantly busier and irritating as the time of the third quarter quell draws near. Maria Hill is still being paraded around the president's palace when Steve finally shoves off back to District 12. It is the second time in almost five decades he's ever actually _wanted_ to go home, the fourth time actually returning.

Peggy meets him at the station, flustered and happy, as though this is all something to celebrate through. Steve has to remind himself that Peggy has never really lived through a quarter quell before - she wasn't even old enough to be in the tribute pool at the last one. She tells him she's happy to have him, happy to have some company, happy to see him back home again. He smiles, says the district smells even worse than he remembered. It makes her laugh. Peggy always makes him feel a little better about coming home, even if the thought of remembering his life there makes him sick.

She is the only person allowed to carry him, ever, and even then only for short distances, like from his wheelchair to an actual seat. The Capitol-mandated television in her house sits on the wall directly opposite the couch, unlike in Steve's apartment, where it's shoved to the side of the mantlepiece as far away as possible. It's cold - the winter hasn't yet given way to spring - and Steve carries a blanket with him over his knees wherever he goes. When the excitement of seeing each other again wears down, Peggy is quieter, solemner. She makes two gin and tonics, and they both drink quietly.

"The quarter quells are awful, aren't they?" She says, finally. Steve looks up at her, but she's focused on her drink, and doesn't look back. "I was still a kid at the last one - but I knew all the tributes that year. I knew all of them. They were my friends."

Steve looks to the screen. There is nothing he can say. The games go beyond verbal condolences.

Pepper Potts and Phil Coulson are friends - such good friends, in fact, that Pepper is actually allowed to call him by his first name. Everyone gets the closest to the tributes from their district - holding a shared history is part of surviving in close quarters with each other. They drink in the kitchen. Phil has whiskey straight out of the bottle - Pepper makes herself a dry martini (very dry. Incredibly dry. With lots of olives. Like, at least three olives). Tony was supposed to come by, but he says he's "busy", which probably means he's building more toys in his basement. Pepper complains that she really should've known better - she's known Tony for years, almost twenty years now - and Coulson nods sagely. He doesn't, actually, know much of anything about romance. It's not really his ballpark.

The thought of having to listen to another goddamn announcement by president Snow is enough to make both of them get as drunk as they can on whatever Pepper has in her kitchen, which in turn makes her think that calling Tony is a Really Great Idea. Surprisingly enough, he answers, maybe because he's got a special ringtone for her, or maybe because he's drunk, too.

Tony is, in fact, making toys in the basement, if by basement, you meant lab, and by toys, you meant incredibly dangerous atomic weapons. He's had three beers to match his companion's half-bottle of wine. It's hard enough getting Bruce Banner to leave his house, much less his district. Getting him all the way to Tony's mini-mansion is practically a miracle, which pinned Tony back home. They are drinking. Bruce is welding. Neither of them has the forethought to decide that this is a bad idea.

"Look, Tony, I'm just saying that it's an important announcement and I think we're all legally mandated to watch it," Pepper says, speaking more loudly than she means to, "and if you're not going to watch it, then I'm going to tell you what the president has to say."

"Pepper, please," Tony responds, waving his hands around in the air like she can see him, "since when has that half-dead bag of bones ever said anything important? The TV's on upstairs, so it'll sound like we're watching, anyway."

"We? Who are you with?" In the other room, Phil fiddles around with the television screen. Pepper can't turn it off, but she did figure out how to mute it years ago, which is almost the same thing. Only they don't know how to unmute it, now.

"Banner's here," Tony says, his mouth obviously full of something. Pepper has the foresight to not ask what he's eating. She probably doesn't want to know. "We're adventuring in welding."

"What? How many drinks have you had? Whoever has the blowtorch needs to put it down now," she says. From the other room, a faint 'got it!' and the sound of a commercial springing to life pour through.

"But Pepper-"

"NOW, Tony."

Clint gets home to find Natasha already at his kitchen table. He didn't invite her, but he's aware that he really shouldn't be surprised by now.

"Merry quarter quell," she deadpans, "aren't you going to invite me in?"

He's pretty sure he had _three new locks _on his door, and considers commenting on this, but withdraws the statement before it makes it to his mouth. He knows her well enough by now. She would've gotten in either way. "Merry quarter quell, Tasha. Would you like to come in?"

"Don't mind if I do," she responds. "Now ask me if I want a drink."

He looks in her hand. She's already holding a glass full of what he hopes is water, but knows is vodka. He sighs. "Can I get you a drink?"

"Your hospitality knows no bounds." She sips gently. "Go make yourself a drink, we'll have something together."

Sitting on the counter is a glass of beer, poured over a lot of ice. On the rim of the glass is a slice of lime, and a tiny pink umbrella. He looks at her for an explanation. She shrugs. "I thought it would make it more festive," she says. He smiles in spite of himself.

"Okay," he says, drink in hand, "let's go watch this son of a bitch make his dumb fucking announcement, huh?"

The TV's already set up, and they sit next to each other on the couch. Clint rests his head on her shoulder. Natasha does nothing in response, but she doesn't push him away, which is as close to inviting contact as she gets.

Sam Wilson is spending the announcement night at his cousin's house, family scattered wildly about the building. Peggy invited him over, too, but he had to decline - family comes first.

Everyone else in the house, after a rousing and explosive dinner, collects around the television to watch. Sam, however, is an adult, and has no children, and so the games really don't affect him anymore. He wasn't even alive for the last quarter quell. Instead, he washes dishes, and listens from the kitchen. Thoughtfully, his cousin turns the television up loud enough that he can hear it over the sink.

Loki is too young to drink, but he drinks anyway, the hard cider that District 10 is so famous for. His mother doesn't mind - she drank at that age. The games are isolating on a personal level. They make you forget how to connect to anyone who hasn't been in the stadium. It's why she still shares a home with her boy. They both know what the dreams feel like.

Out of some childish habit, Loki sits on a pillow on the floor at his mother's feet. Frigga perches on her armchair, like Zeus of Olympus. They are both frozen in place, watching silently as hawks.

The vehement hatred of the Capitol is apparent in their home at all times. It has been present since Loki was born, cradled in the arms of a victor who was forcibly separated from her husband and elder son by the brutality of the districts. It is a family of victors - two from a career district, two from the stables of the Capitol's metaphorical inn. Loki knows his brother is a survivor, too, knows that his father's passing hit his mother hard, but he does not care. The careers are too close to the Capitol for his affection to travel so close, and the way his victory was cast aside as the fourth and final one for the Odinsons stings bitterly in his mouth. His mother was proud - moved to tears - but his father couldn't be bothered to care.

When he was a child, he would sit before his mother for her to braid his hair. Now, her hands are folded on her knees, and his hair hangs loose about his ears. They are too filled with contempt to be bothered with love.

Maria gets home late the night before, her mentor in tow. He rubs her back and ruffles her hair, walks her home. It's surprisingly vulnerable for him, and by the next day, he's back to yelling and throwing things, but Maria remembers. Her sixteenth birthday was the week before the train ride, and he bought her an engraved cigarette case. She doesn't smoke, but it's a nice case, and it was particularly thoughtful. Mostly, Fury just talks about how she needs to win, act like she's proud of winning, no smiling, no crying, stand tall with shoulders back and eyes hard and ahead.

He doesn't come by on the day of, but he calls her, sounds pretty badly hungover. She reminds him of the announcement, and he swears a lot, hangs up on her. She doesn't mind. He lives in a house about twelve yards away from hers, anyway. If she really wants to talk to him, she can just walk to his front door.

Nick Fury, for his part, feels drained. No amount of alcohol in the world could make the train ride easier. It was awful when he did it, and it was awful for Maria now. If he hadn't enforced the "no emotions in public" rule so solidly, she would've been crying maybe every other night. Seeing the lower districts really shook her. Sure, 5 is no career, but watching her hands shake while she delivered the eulogies for 11 and 12 hurt him on a personal level. She's still a kid, and he feels guilty for letting it happen to her. It's hard not to care for your tributes, when you're a mentor. Harder when they live.

The quarter quell is just a firmer kick in the face about the games, a reminder that Maria's a mentor now, that the first games she has to guide new tributes through are the hardest fucking games she'll probably live to see, unless she's like he was. He can remember how young he was during the second quarter quell. He can remember all four of the tributes that year, even if he can't remember their names. At least he was an infant for the first one, at least he can't remember that.

The television blares the Capitol's music loudly. His head hurts. He considers getting drunk again.

The president walks to his podium. A hush falls.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, "this is the 75th year of the hunger games." Cheering. Respectful hush. "It was written in the charter of the games that every twenty-five years, there would be a quarter quell," he continues, "to keep fresh for each new generation the memory of those who died in the uprising against the Capitol. Each quarter quell is distinguished by games of a special significance. And now, on this, the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the rebellion, we celebrate the third quarter quell," More cheering. Another respectful hush. "As a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol," and a dramatic pause.

"The male and female tributes are to be reaped…from the existing pool of victors in each District."

The world is quiet for a brief moment. Then, chaos.

Peggy sits, rigid, face stark white, lips hanging open. "You son of a bitch," she hisses, through clenched teeth. "You son of a bitch, you son of a _bitch_," and suddenly she is standing, shrieking, hurling her glass through the screen to watch it break on the wall beyond. "No! No, you fucking, you sick son of a bitch, no!"

Next to her, Steve merely crumples. He curls over his own knees, arms wrapped around himself like he's being torn apart in the gale of her rage. She screams, swears, hurls the bottle of gin against the wall, angry tears streaming down her face. Lowers herself to the ground. Buries her face in the blanket on his lap. He runs gentle fingers through her hair. "You won't be alone," he whispers, like it's an old secret they passed to one another in youth. "I'm sorry, Peggy. I'm sorry."

The plate in Sam's hand shatters on the floor before he realizes he dropped it. Blearily, as though in a dream, he stumbles out the back door, out the backyard, runs from the house across the roads and the alleys into the fields on the edge of the city, runs among the grain, falls to his knees. He will not return to the house for another half hour - when he does, he will clean up the shattered plate and finish doing the dishes in silence.

"Well, he's giving some bullshit about how no one is as strong as the Capitol, so the thing for the quell...is..." Pepper stops mid-sentence. The phone slips out of her hand, bounces on the floor. She moves her lips silently, but she cannot make a sound. Phil is transfixed, frozen in shock. From the phone, Tony calls Pepper's name in increasing confusion and panic.

In two minutes, Phil's phone will ring. Neither of them will make a move to answer it. They stare at the television, like they're waiting for another announcement calling the first one off, saying it was a mistake or a joke or something, anything, to make it stop being real. Nothing comes.

Frigga cries out in a pale shade of desperation - her son, silent at her feet, rests his head against her knees. She braids her fingers through his hair. "My boy," she wails, "my boy."

Maria covers her ears with her hands, gasping for air like there's none left in the room. She thinks, maybe, she should scream - but she can't get the air into her lungs for it. Instead, she stumbles towards the door, down her front steps into the night.

Across the street, Nick Fury flips over the table his television is stationed on, breaks a bottle on the floor, and grabs his coat on the way out of the house. He doesn't need it - Maria, stumbling along the ice outside her home, will. He gets to her before she can get to him, throws the coat around her shoulders, pulls her close against him. She wails softly into his shoulder. "Easy, Hill," he whispers, staring hard at the lights in her house, "this isn't public. You clock out if you need to."

Clint scrambles to his feet like he's ready to do something drastic. Natasha sits still. Nothing shakes Natasha anymore, really. Her eyes are wide and her face is pale, but next to Clint, who drops his drink, swears loudly, flips a chair over, swears more, and storms off into the kitchen, she is as calm as a tree in a gale. In ten minutes, the cacophony of Clint's rage will pass into a soft moaning - only then does she stand from her spot and follow him to the kitchen.

He is sitting in the corner, knees to his chest, head bent. Quite possibly, she thinks, he is crying. She sits next to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her. "There's a lot of tributes from District 7, you know," she says, and sets her head against his. "The most of any non-career. We might be safe." No response. He is definitely crying, she notes with some distress. "If they choose you, I'll volunteer. We'll go down together." Still nothing. This is not Natasha's area of expertise, even with Clint. She looks around for something, anything, to make him stop crying. "There's vodka left," she settles on, finally, "You wanna get drunk?" There's a pause in the snuffling. Then, a tiny nod. She rubs his back.

No one answers the goddamn phone. Tony calls Pepper three times, Coulson twice. Bruce suggests calling other victors, but Rogers is out of the house, Fury won't pick up, they're both too scared of Natasha to try her phone, and the Odinsons are frankly kind of uncomfortable to talk to. They're stuck on it for almost ten minutes before Bruce remembers that they actually have a television going upstairs, and that the announcement is so important, it'll probably be rerunning all night. Tony gets up the stairs first - it is his house - and starts jumping through channels. In three minutes, they find the first rerun of the announcement.

They watch, transfixed. Tony makes spluttering noises, like he's just been doused in frigid water - Bruce starts laughing. "Fuck this," he says, through heaves of breath, "fuck this goddamn country." He sinks into a chair, buries his fingers in his hair, and laughs. Doors slam in the rest of the house, and he knows that Tony is gone.

Onwards, later. First, let's go back.


	2. Maria Hill

Your name is Maria Hill, and eleven months ago, you won the 74th annual hunger games. Now, the carpeted floor of the victory train rumbles under your feet, and your mentor stares sternly down at you.

"Remember, miss Hill," he says, his single good eye fixated on your face, "no fear, no crying, no happiness. You don't shake, you don't stutter. You practice reading those cards out loud? The ones Mrs. Villiers gave you?"

"Yes, sir," you say, firmly, respectfully. It's the voice you've practiced in front of your mirror every day for the past eleven months. It's sturdy under your hands, now. It feels safe in your mouth.

"Read them for me," he says, "try not to look at them."

You do. He nods satisfactorily. "Good enough," he says, which is about as close to a compliment as he gets, "you'll probably get better at 'em once you've read 'em to the big crowds a couple times. You get nervous in front of people?"

"No, sir," you lie. You hate crowds.

"Bullshit," he says, then, "nothing wrong with being nervous, Hill, just so long as no one knows. Keep it here." He pats his chest through the thick leather trenchcoat he always wears. "You ready for District 12?"

"I'll find out when we get there," you say. It's as close to true as you can get. Your mentor smiles.

"Give 'em hell, kid. Statuesque-like."

* * *

You aren't ready for District 12. You're not ready for District 11, either. They blur together in your mind as equally terrible experiences, but when they happen, 12 is a little worse. You walk out onto the stage, head held high, hair tied tight behind your head, wearing something tight and black and expensive, and stare out into the crowd of dark-eyed, tight-lipped adults. There are huge revolving pictures on big television screens of the tributes, and your stomach clenches like a fist. You killed both of them. You remember them distinctly. Their families stare at you, crying, angry.

Your face holds firm, lips tight, eyes fierce, but your hands shake so badly you nearly drop the cards. Your chest is tight, and until you focus hard on calming your pulse, your breath comes too fast and too shallow, like you're drowning in one of the nightmares. You close your eyes, open them again, like you're expecting to see something less terrifying. Look down at the cards in your hands. You can't read them, but you remember what they say. Breathe deep - and read them.

You're barely done with the cards, lips trembling as you say "Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever," when the applause rises, resentful and slow, and Fury grabs you by the shoulder and pulls you back behind closed doors. You gasp at him, stare up desperately, but he is ironfaced, and makes no eye contact with you until he's trundled you back onto the train.

"Don't clock out here, Hill," he says, stern, "you've got cameras everywhere. The Capitol's got its eyes on you. Stay focused. Keep all this - " he points solidly at your brimming tears - "under wraps." You sniff, hard, and he sets a heavy palm on your shoulder. "Easy, Hill," he adds, softer, "it doesn't get harder. Twelve's the worst."

* * *

Districts 11 and 12 are definitely the hardest, but 9 and 10 aren't much easier. You wake up screaming the night after District 9 - it was down to you and the tribute from there in the games, and you remember throttling her to death, her knife in your guts. Five minutes after, Fury comes sweeping in from the other side of the train. He gives you his coat to bundle up in when you tell him how awful blankets are. It smothers the dreams.

By the time you get to District 7, you've perfected a stony, solid face - or, more accurately, you've perfected internalizing the face you used to practice in front of the mirror every day. You keep the cards in your back pocket, shoulders back, head high, hands at your sides. You learn how to look imposing as you spit out the lies Mrs. Villiers wrote for you - about the courage showed by the tributes from the district, about the strength of the Capitol, about the unity of Panem today, tomorrow, forever - and the people of the district fear you, the way they fear Fury.

You remember the tributes from every District, the little girl and the skinny, spotty boy from seven, that terrifying murderous bitch from nine, the tall, strong, handsome boy from eleven that you had an embarrassing crush on, the dirty-faced blond kids from twelve - Jesus, you remember all of them. Fury's coat helps a little, but he needs it, too, and when he needs it you are plagued with dead hands reaching out to strangle you, the wailing screams cut short when you ripped a girl's throat out, grabbing, pulling, desperate hands drowning you in the lake from the stadium

And you wake up, screaming, sweating, flailing away from imagined hands grasping at you, and sometimes you can't stop screaming, can't wake up even when you're awake. You cannot get away until you hear the charging footsteps of Fury hurtling down the train to rescue you, his existence reminding you what is real and what is not. The night terrors were never as bad at home, but there was never anyone at home willing to help you. Fury is always present - he's not always helpful, but he's always present.

The careers are the easiest - you know, at least, that all the kids from 1 and 2 actually volunteered, that they were barely kids at all, that they went in for _glory_, and it's easy to feel contempt for them. They are not like the starving children of 11 and 12, their citizens not hollow-eyed and bony-faced like pale imitations of humans. They stare up proudly, and you stare proudly out back, recite the cards from memory.

Panem today.

Panem tomorrow.

Panem forever.

* * *

The Capitol is insufferable, and you have to spend an entire day there.

Well, actually, no. You spend most of your day with your escort and her tiny herd of costume minions being dressed and fitted and made up. Your dress is tightened and loosened and hemmed, your hair jerked this way and that, your face generally trussed up in some imitation of Capitol fashion. You feel ugly, like an overdressed bird of paradise, but your escort cries "happy tears" when she sees you, and Nick nods proudly, stoic, unsmiling. "How you feeling, Hill?"

"Like hell," you say flatly. You are too tired to lie.

He smiles and nods. "Go give it back to them," he tells you, and sets a hand on your shoulder.

Your dress is some prickly thing, a flaring Capitol party red, tight on your hips and loose below the knees. It gives you the sensation of tottering back and forth, unable to really shift your thighs to compensate for your actual footfalls. The heels don't help. You've never worn high heels before in your life - if your escort wasn't literally holding your hand the entire way in, you'd probably have hurtled down the stairs and died on the Capitol steps. Wouldn't that be perfect. President Snow could clean blood off of his front porch for once.

They're stifling. Stifling. Everyone in the Capitol wants to see you, stroke your dress, make conversation about what a -hero- you are. Women with smiles like jigsaw nightmares pull you between them so they can get a picture with you. A man with his eyebrows nearly in his hairline offers to teach you to dance, doesn't wait for you to respond until he pulls you onto the floor. You resist the overwhelming temptation to slap him across the face, but it's a near thing. Personally, you're impressed with your own moral fortitude that you last as long as you do - but eventually you claim you're running to The Ladies (which you guess is what they call the toilets, up here) and slip away as fast as you can into a series of mostly unoccupied rooms.

The palace is generally packed, but some areas are more packed or less packed than other areas. The courtyard, for example, was impossible to navigate, but the library only has three or four couples smooching in the corners, completely oblivious to you - and the room that leads off of it, marked with a golden plaque (which, given that this is the president, is probably real gold) labeled "HALL OF VICTORY", is completely empty. The door isn't locked, or anything - it's just hard to find, or maybe boring. Good. You jostle the handle a little and slide in.

It's not a hallway, which is what you expected from the name, just a room. It's pretty big, to be fair, but it's not exactly long. Three of the four walls are covered in illuminated rectangles about the size of movie posters, glowing gently at your entrance, but there's no other lighting in the room, giving you the eerie feeling of being completely alone. It's the first time you've felt really alone in almost a year - no cameras, no Capitol citizens, no Fury, no Villiers, nobody. A huge weight lifts itself from your body, your shoulders relaxing, chin lowering, and, newly liberated as you are, you walk to the wall on your right to look at the nearest rectangle.

It's a picture of you.

You startle back for a second, stumbling on wobbling heels for a moment, then inspect the picture again. Specifically, it's a picture of you from almost one full year ago, fifteen and ponytailed and seriously photoshopped. Your Capitol portrait, you remember, from the games last year. Shoulders upwards, staring nobly into the distance. Fury insisted. Underneath it, on a silver plaque, reads:

74TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES  
MARIA HILL, DISTRICT 5

You blink, almost nervously, wobble a little more - step out of your shoes. No one's watching - and walk two steps to the left. The picture is of a face you vaguely remember, a boy with shark cheekbones and gelled back hair. You look at the plaque.

73RD ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES  
LOKI ODINSON, DISTRICT 10

It clicks. Of course, you realize. Hall of victory. Past victors of the games. You turn around, survey the room, and something in your stomach drops. You didn't realize what a big number 74 was until you saw it all together at once. If you multiplied the number of pictures in the room by 23, you'd have the number of people who've died in the stadium. You feel sick.

Something, though, keeps you walking. At the next reaping, you figure with a shudder, you'll be a mentor - and Fury says you're going to have to get to know all the other mentors, too. Make friends in the Capitol. It'd be good to have names and faces under your belt, and you learn fast. Besides, even this beats being out "among the people". You take mental notes, especially with the prettiest victors. 71ST ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES - SAMUEL WILSON, DISTRICT 11. 70TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES - THOR ODINSON, DISTRICT 2. Wait. Odinson again? You look back to the plaque with the hair gel boy. Both Odinson, from different districts. Your brow furrows. You make a mental note.

You also make a note of the big blank space of wall in between 61 and 62, or PHIL COULSON, DISTRICT 8 and DARCY LEWIS, DISTRICT 9. It's too big for a regular picture to fit, but you aren't sure what else would go in there. A door, maybe? Why? You bite your lip and ponder studiously as you walk further along the wall, looking for faces or names you recognize.

Something weird strikes you as you inspect the plaque for PEGGY CARTER, DISTRICT 12. First off, that's the first District 12 victor you've seen so far, and you're close to the far side of the wall, but secondly and more strikingly, below her name and district is a third line. "KILLS: 7". It's not on the plaque to the right, closer to the present - but it is on the one to the left, further in the past. Maybe that's something that used to be lauded, mentioned, important. Like a score. The girl in the picture looks younger than you, maybe thirteen or fourteen, all big round eyes and softly curled hair. You can't imagine her killing anyone, let alone seven people. Maybe that's how she survived.

At the corner, the numbers skip from 51 to 49, but you don't really notice. You're focused on the kills counter, now, figuring out just how deadly these victors really are. You also notice that some of them have another, smaller silver plaque below the first one: "DECEASED". Guess you don't have to know those names, you think dryly, and skip over any and all with it. You've stopped feeling lonely in the room. You are surrounded by other victors, who are all staring proudly or prettily or humbly to one side of the frame or the other. The pictures have lowered in quality somewhat - the one of you was a holographic image, moving slightly as the viewer did, but these ones are just pictures.

You find the big gap between 41 and 42 on this wall, only it's not a gap - you actually have to stand back to look at it. It's another picture, almost twice the size of the other ones, framed in gold, with a plaque both at the top of the frame and the bottom. At the top, and then at the bottom, you read:

SECOND QUARTER QUELL  
50TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES

TONY STARK, DISTRICT 1  
KILLS: 4

The boy in the picture doesn't _look_ like Tony Stark. You've seen Tony Stark a million times, on TV, in Capitol propaganda, everywhere he could get his face. Tony Stark's got salt and pepper temples, and an almost shaved face, and a jawline that you could break a door down with, not...well. The boy in the picture has a militarily close haircut, and a clean-shaven face, and an expression that's probably supposed to look careless and proud but mostly just looks dorky. The boy is...a boy. He looks like he breaks out sometimes, or stammers when people are looking at him.

You glide past most of the rest of the wall, go to the third and final one. It's been a while, now, you should be getting back, but you have to know. Most of the plaques have the "DECEASED" label below them over here. You aren't sure exactly how old Fury is, but you want to know why the Capitol is so afraid of him. It takes longer to find than you expected. He doesn't look like Fury at all. He's young, and...kinda handsome, in a retro sort of way. Close-cropped hair, a tidy goatee. And, most significantly, both of his eyes stare out, proud, wordless, no eyepatch, no scars, nothing.

38TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES  
NICHOLAS FURY, DISTRICT 5  
KILLS: 21

It's the most kills of anyone in the room, you realize. The next highest was an 11 count. You press a palm to your forehead, breathe hard. The hands that grip you by the shoulders when you wake at night are soaked in blood. He's your mentor. He gave you a cigarette case for your birthday. You feel like you're going to vomit.

Instead, you nearly have a heart attack as the door you forgot the existence of slams open. You scream involuntarily - it's one of those short, little screams, like a yapping dog - and Mrs. Villiers screams too. Both of you gasp and collect yourself. "Maria!" She says, sternly. "Whatever are you doing in _here_?"

"I was just...looking at the - " you wave around at the walls, and when she follows your direction, she sees the shoes you abandoned on the floor.

"What are those doing there? Those are _Garvedericci shoes_, darling!" She looks so impudent, dark hair springing everywhere in curls, you almost want to laugh. "Get those on and let's _go_! The president is about to make an announcement, but he's been keeping it on hold because everyone says you're _missing_. The entire _palace_ has been looking for you!"

You cast your eyes down, apologize, and cross the room to step into your shoes. When you turn around, you glance around the room one last time, and your eyes fall on the golden frame on the far left wall. You blink. It's not a photograph at all. It's a watercolor painting. A broad-shouldered, blond haired, strong, attractive young man. He doesn't look like a kid - he looks like he's in his mid-twenties at least, fully grown and beautiful.

FIRST QUARTER QUELL  
25TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES

STEVE ROGERS, DISTRICT 12  
KILLS: 0

Zero kills.

"Come _on_, Maria dear," your escort calls from the doorway, "are you having more trouble with the heels? Oh, dear, I _told_ you that you should practice at those, they are so _very_ high," she clicks her tongue pityingly. "Come here, darling, you give me your arm and I'll help you make your way out."

* * *

On the ride home, you strip yourself of the dress and wrap a blanket around your mostly naked body. You lie on one of the couches in the main room - Fury sits on the couch across from you, reading the paper. There's an amiable silence for at least an hour and half.

Finally, half asleep, you address him. "Sir," you mumble drowsily, "who's Steve Rogers?"

His one good eye flicks from the paper to you. "Steve Rogers?" He asks. You nod from your blanket cocoon. He sighs heavily, thoughtfully, folds up the paper on his lap. "Steve Rogers was the victor of the first quarter quell," he says, almost wearily, "first ever victor from the 12th District. Holds a fairly justified hatred for his home. Complete hermit. No one except Carter and the District 12 tributes see him much."

You try to think, but it's hard when you're bundled up like the filling of a delicious blanket burrito and the atmosphere is saturated with the soporific noise of the train on the tracks. "He doesn't have a Capitol portrait," you say, finally. "It's not a picture, I mean. It's a painting."

"He says it's against his religion to be photographed or seen on camera," Fury says, and unfolds the newspaper again.

"Is that a real religion?"

"Hell if I know."

You think hard again, eyes closed. "What does he look like now?"

"Old." Fury doesn't even look up. "Don't you worry about Steve Rogers, Hill. Just focus on your mission right now. You gonna go back to your room to sleep or what?"

You shake your head, eyes still fastened shut. "Nnn, 'm gonna stay here," you assert.

There's a long pause. Then, Fury says "me, too," and the light behind your eyelids lowers. You crack one eye open to see him reading with the desk light from behind him, the rest of the room dark.

"G'night."

"Night, Hill."

The weary sound of the train trundles on around you. You do not dream.

* * *

DISCLAIMER: the Hall of Victory is absolutely fanon. It was invented for this AU to help with conveying backstory. If it inspires you in some way, or you think it's a cool idea and want to borrow it, go ahead! I'm all about that.


	3. Sam Wilson

Your name is Sam Wilson, and you know you are going to die.

You have known you are going to die from the second the woman with the frosted pink hair called your name, all sharp grinning cat teeth and surgically implanted whiskers. It didn't hit like you thought it would, didn't break you in half and leave you weeping on the ground. It was just stone cold revelation, and every part of you that felt alive drained away through your back. You stand on the podium, the woman's clawed fingernails digging into your shoulder, and feel nothing at all. The reaping, you think numbly, is hell.

You get to say goodbye to your family, to your wingman, to anyone who thinks they want to see you one last time. And you act like you do at family reunions, smiling warmly and promising you'll think of everyone when you're up in the Capitol, and you feel nothing.

On the train ride, you meet the female tribute, and later, your mentor. The other tribute's name is Queue. She seems nice, but she is twelve, and you know that like you, she is going to die. Your mentor's name is Bartoli, which you forget almost immediately. He's big, badly scarred, and scary - his advice, bloodthirsty and useless. He says that senseless violence is what gets you through the games. You ignore him with ease, but Queue wraps on to his words like they'll save her life. Nothing will. Nothing will save either of you.

The inevitability doesn't hit you, at first. It's consciousness versus subconsciousness, knowing you're going to die versus feeling that you're going to die, but when it does, you take to wandering. You never technically ASK, but since your mentor never stops you, you assume it's not against any rules to walk around on the different floors. Each of the floors is held by the tributes of a different district, with District 1 taking the 1st floor and District 12 on the 12th. Which makes sense, and also makes it easy for you to avoid any of the career districts, who honestly kind of scare you. You stick to everything north of the 6th floor (after accidentally bumping into Nick Fury there once), walking up and down the stairs and across the carpeted hallways barefoot. District 8 has the warmest heating, but District 12 has the best view from the windows. With a several day long life expectancy left, you find you prefer the view than the heat.

You're sitting on the windowsill, watching the Capitol live at night, when you hear the racket from down the hall. It sounds, mostly, like a lot of swearing and metal making hard contact against more metal. Against your better judgment, you investigate, following the sound down the hallways all the way to the elevator, where a man old enough to have white hair is scowling in contempt at the elevator doors from his wheelchair. He is also, you note, swearing. Profusely. And loudly.

You don't know what to say. You don't even know how to say it. You know you have to say _something_, and consider a myriad of different sentences, the 'do you need help's and 'what's wrong's of the universe made applicable to this situation. Your mouth makes a noble effort regardless, and gives you "do you need any assistance, sir?" before your brain attaches it to 'things I actually said'. The man in the wheelchair stops swearing under his breath and turns his head to look at you over his shoulder. Piercing blue eyes run the gamut through you. This was a terrible idea.

"Who the hell are you?" He snaps. You swallow, hard.

"My name is Sam Wilson, sir," you stammer, because you've always been taught to show respect to your elders, "I, uh, I'm the tribute for District 11." No hands in your pockets, you remember, it's disrespectful. Your fingers hang uncomfortably loose at your sides.

He stares at you for a minute, like he's trying to parse you, then says "get over here, then, dammit, if you're going to make yourself useful you can stop twisting my neck by standing back there," and you scramble to his side, eager to move.

"So what do you need?" You press on hastily. Don't forget what you came over here to do.

He sighs, deeply. Taps the elevator door with the cane in his hand. "I need to get downstairs," he says, and holds up a palm to your face as though to silence an oncoming comment, "but the idiots at the Capitol have apparently forgotten what elevators are supposed to be _for_. They've redesigned them," he spits the word 'redesigned' like venom, "and now they're too small for my goddamn wheelchair. The fucking nerve," he snarls, staring intently at the elevator doors. You glance at him, and at the elevator, and back to the stairs. He's not big. You could lift him, easy.

"Well, if you need to get downstairs, I'm sure I could carry you down," you offer. The old man, to his credit, only looks mildly startled, and you press on. "I could probably carry your chair, too. It's only twelve floors, at most. Where are you trying to go?"

"I have no doubt you _could_, but you won't," he says. Then, "I could use some help, but I won't be carried. Get me up," he waves generally at the chair, "and let me lean on you. At least then, I can keep my dignity intact."

"Yes, sir."

It takes some maneuvering, and a lot of getting snapped at by a cranky old man, but both of you (and the wheelchair, folded up to fit) make it into the elevator. You see what he means - it really is too small. You wonder why you didn't notice before.

Still, you both make it to the first floor generally intact, and he stares at you for a few seconds after you lever him back into his chair. Furrows his brow. Asks, "your name's Wilson, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hm." He nods, like you've unlocked some secret code. "Well. You mind if I mention you by name when I need help again?"

"Oh, uh," you blink, startled, but recover as best you can. "No, sir, of course you can. Only, I'm busy most of the day, so I might not be, uh, as available as someone else."

He shrugs. "So am I," he responds, and, after some hesitation, adds, "well, you'd better head back to your room, Wilson. Long day tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." You dip your head towards him respectfully, and with some hesitation (you're not totally sure he's going to make it out of the building alright), turn to head back to the stairs.

"Wilson."

"Sir?" You whirl around, stare down the hallway attentively.

There's a pause, like he's looking for the right words. "I'm rooting for you," he settles with, "in the games."

How are you supposed to respond to that? You have no idea. "Thank you, sir," you say, because it seems like the right thing. Apparently, it is - the old man nods, satisfied, and without another word, turns his chair around and wheels away.

You have eleven flights of stairs to contemplate what happened. You walk slowly, just in case.

* * *

The old man's name, you find out from your own mentor, is Mr. Rogers. He lives on the floor with the 12th District tributes all year round, which you guess means he's one of the only people in the center for most of the year. You ask him, in the elevator, why he doesn't live up in the center of the Capitol, or back in his district. He says people make him feel sick. Which is kind of the end of that.

Mr. Rogers is probably the tiniest adult you've ever met. In District 11, you're big or you're dead - even the oldest men don't get much older than 50 or so before they collapse in the fields, and they're still broad-shouldered and muscle-packed. Mr. Rogers is swamped in his own chair, his own grey suit, pale as death and unobtrusive as a silent child. He doesn't smile at anyone, doesn't even really look at anyone. People either don't notice him at all, standing or walking in front of him absentmindedly, or notice him too much, staring at him like they're trying to count every hair on his head. It's the wheelchair, he says to you in the elevator once, the goddamn wheelchair ruining him. He says the people who bother to let him exist at all treat him like an infant, babytalk and simpering congratulatory bullshit for simple tasks included. He says don't you ever treat a grown-ass man like a four-year-old just because his fucking legs don't work, do you understand, Wilson? You say yes, Mr. Rogers.

He's smart about the games, smarter than your own mentor by far, shrugs off advice like he's got nowhere to keep it. Stay away from the cornucopia, just take your own pack and run for cover, he tells you. Only it's Mr. Rogers, so he says it like "goddamn poor sons of bitches with idiot trainers going straight into a bloodbath. Kids go out like a light in the first 20 minutes. You wanna stay alive, Wilson? You do the opposite of what everyone else does. Anything you need is with you on the drop." You're really good at translating what Mr. Rogers says, actually. He says "your opponents are weak - scare them", he means 'go show off'. Or he says "there are no allies in the games", but he means 'watch your back'. Or he says "dammit, Wilson, stop moving around so much", which means 'I need help'.

Your mentor says things like "run for the cornucopia, grab the axe, and get hacking", which probably means "I don't value your life at all, and neither should you". When you ask him what happens if someone else gets there first and kills you before you can get a weapon, he says "then you didn't really deserve to win, then, did you?" You think that's just an elaborate way of saying 'fuck you', but you and your mentor don't really see eye to eye, so that's basically all guesswork.

You repeat the advice to Mr. Rogers anyway, who snorts condescendingly and lets out a stream of expletives you didn't think old people were even supposed to know. He also spews out a series of new terms for your mentor, none of which you can repeat but all of which you agree with. "That strategy," he says, waving the flask in his hand around vaguely, "has worked about six times in the past fifty years. I guess it worked for him, and...who else is still alive who did that? Fury, that's right. So if you think you're Nick Fury, go right ahead and try that, but most of us aren't." You laugh and shake your head. You've met Nick Fury exactly once. It was probably the most terrifying moment of your life.

"Yeah, I don't really listen to him when I can help it," you say, leaning your hip awkwardly against the armrest of a nearby couch. Mr. Rogers' home is mostly bare, but there are chairs and couches everywhere. It reminds you of your uncle's home, where you're not allowed to sit down until you're invited to, to show your resolve or something. Habit keeps you standing. "I think I like your advice better."

"Bullshit. I'm not giving you advice."

You laugh. "Right, my bad." Mr. Rogers is always insistent that he's just complaining out loud and doesn't notice you at all. Out of habit, you look to him to see if he needs anything. He's sitting back in an armchair, jacket of his suit discarded somewhere, all starched white shirt and suspenders. He should, by all means, look smaller - but instead he looks like a monarch, perched on his throne high above the proletariat. You're on his turf, here. Tread with caution. "If I can ask..." you glance away, and then glance back. Whenever you speak, he turns his full attention on you, and the intensity of his gaze is almost frightening. "...how come you...know so much? About the games?"

"You can't," he says, but it's not as sharp as it usually is. You nod, glance towards the door. You should really go - you finished putting his groceries away for him almost half an hour ago. "Do you drink, Wilson?"

You blink at him. "Uh, I'm only seventeen, sir. I can't."

"I didn't ask if you _could_, Wilson," he snaps, "I asked if you _do_."

"Uh." Glance at the door again. Back to Mr. Rogers. Something about his gaze is almost - deafening? It's impossible to describe. It kind of makes you want to throw up, but not quite in a bad way. "Only as a painkiller, sir," you start, stumbling through your thought process, "you know, for surgery? And things?" You have no idea what the right answer for this question is, what he's expecting, what he wants.

Mr. Rogers does this thing when he's thinking where he looks down without moving his head, like he's reading a book, moves his eyes back and forth behind lashes, then looks up, intensity of his gaze redoubled. He does it to you now, purses his lips, holds the flask in his hands in your general direction. "Here," he says, and looks away from you, "you've only got four days for sure, you may as well try everything."

You pause, glance at him, and gently take the flask from his hand. His arm darts back to his lap like a fish across the water, and his eyes glide vaguely to the Capitol-mandated television set on the wall. "And sit _down_, Wilson, Jesus, you're in someone else's home," he adds.

"Yes, Mr. Rogers." Without really thinking about what you're doing, you sit. And drink. And almost spit out whatever you just put in your mouth. It tastes like goddamn turpentine, and you think the skin on your tongue is going to burn off. Against better judgment, you swallow, tears forming in your eyes, and glance back to Mr. Rogers, who looks like he's trying desperately not to laugh.

"Trust no one," he says, smiling - and against your better judgment, you smile back. You've never seen him without the perpetual scowl before. "You alright, kid?"

"I'm fine," you say, which is a lie. "I can't feel my face and I might be dying, but I'm fine."

He laughs - like, honestly, genuinely laughs - into the palm of his hand, like it's a quiet, private thing to laugh about. "I'm sorry, that was mean," he adds, eyes crushed nearly shut, "I'm sure I have something lighter than that."

"Uh, that's okay," you respond quickly, "I think I might already be drunk, anyway." He laughs, louder, and you catch yourself laughing too. You can't feel your thumbs.

* * *

You ask him to come with you to the stadium, when you go. He snorts and says he's not doing anything else today, anyway, but he takes your hand in two of his, and you're not emotionally ready to translate that out of a Rogersism.

Both of you talk like it's a crime to get personal. He pats your uniform, tells you it's thin enough that it's probably a tropical or desert biome. He asks you what do you do about the cornucopia? You say run away. He asks how you're going to stay alive for the first half? You say by hiding. He asks you are you going to make allies or friends? You say no, sir. He observes you for a minute. Tells you to help him stand up out of his chair.

He doesn't look any bigger when he's standing than when he's sitting down. In fact, he kind of looks smaller. His body curves to the side slightly - his spine, you remember vaguely, is shaped wrong - and he leans heavily on his cane. His head barely comes up to your shoulder. He tells you he's done all he can for you, and sets a tiny hand on your arm. You breathe out, hard, and hug him totally without permission. The timer on the wall begins reading out your minute countdown. He hugs you back.

He's a little pink in the face when you pull away, and you start to wonder when he last got hugged by anyone - but then you stop, because thinking about that is making you really upset. You don't intend to cry, so you just kind of stumble into the tube without saying anything else, then turn to look back at him. He says good luck, Sam. You say thank you, Mr. Rogers.

He says my name is Steve.

It clicks.

The shuttle door closes, separating you officially from the oldest living victor of the hunger games, and as the floor rises beneath you, and Mr. Rogers and the most _shit-eating grin_ you have ever seen sinks away from you, you try not to focus on the fact that you just spent numerous days in the presence of _Steve Rogers_ and no one told you and you didn't even know it was _him_.

The sun is blinding above you, and the tributes around you are all standing on raised pillars over black sand. Desert biome. You met _Steve Rogers_. The cornucopia is filled with water, but you think you can see a river in the distance. You met Steve Rogers and he said he was rooting for you. There's no good cover anywhere, but the sand dunes and scrub brush look like navigation is going to be pretty difficult for everyone. You met Steve Rogers and you were the first person in almost two decades he invited into his house. The countdown is at three. Two. One.

You met Steve Rogers, and he told you how to win.

You move.


	4. Natasha Romanov

The floor is rising below you, and you run your thumb over your token before you tuck it back under your shirt. You don't need a necklace flying out and showing all the tributes there's something they can grab.

Twenty-four. Twenty-three. Twenty-two.

The sun is agonizingly bright, and the arena smells terrible. You look around for something that might help you. Some kind of bog. A swamp biome or something. The golden horn before you is sunken deep into an island of mud, all the packs and weapons strewn about and around in varying levels of gunk depth. Below you, around the pedestal, is dark water, sloshing unpleasantly towards you.

Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.

There are packs in some of the trees in the opposite direction of the cornucopia, but they're so far away from the center of the arena, who knows what they have in them. Maybe nothing useful. Maybe even a bomb. You make a point of staring lustfully at four different ones, though - you can feel several sets of eyes on you.

Eleven. Ten. Nine.

They have to be traps. The Capitol would never give tributes an easy way out. You zero in on the horn again, try to get a feel for the weapons. You can use every weapon, of course - you were trained to use every weapon - but your district rings against your chest, and you'd kill to have an axe. You'd kill for an axe more efficiently if you had an axe. Good thing there are two of them.

Three. Two. One.

You have no idea how to deal with the water around you. On instinct, you step off.

As you hit the bottom in the knee-deep water, you hear two splashes from District 4's pedestals, their bodies curling over in diving arches. As you haul yourself through the water, running competently, two cannons fire above you. No one else has moved from their pedestals, maybe afraid to crack their heads, too. Fine. Head start for you.

By the time you're scrambling up onto the mud in the center, trying to keep steady, slipping, squishing, you start to hear splashes around you. You are busy scrambling into body armor, taking the closest pack and grabbing your axe, kicking the closer packs as far away as possible. Fuck all your opponents equally, you think. Make it impossible to know which ones are good and which ones are bad. Survival of the fastest? Only if you're _you_.

The career pack gets to you first, and you're ready for them.

You slice open the District 1 boy's stomach and he screams, falls back, slam the blade straight into the District 2 girl's face, the remaining boy comes at you with a hammer and you spin away, dropping the axe with the dead girl, swing back for another weapon, double ended spear in your hand and you slice his throat open and you are flying, now, there is cannon fire in the air and the packs in the trees on the other side of the water have to be traps because you hear an explosion and a scream and two cannons in the air

The last career girl slips and falls on the mud and you pin her head to the ground with the spear, retrieve your axe from the other girl's face, look to the other tributes coming in hot and fast now, save for the ones that run, grab the second axe, hurl the first one through the air to embed itself in a coward's back

A boy comes hurtling at you with a knife in his hand but it bounces off the armor on your chest, comes back around to strike you across the face and you make the coward's choice and the _right_ choice to turn _you are bleeding you are bleeding you are bleeding_ and run past the cornucopia to put it between you and the growing horde. You step on part of a body when you are in the water _District 4 dove into foot-deep water_ and scramble into the muddy darkness on the other side, almost fall as something heavy hits you in the back but _keep running hide in the darkness_ you will not die here

* * *

From your new perch in one of the weeping willows, under the cover of the dense branches, you make your official day one observations.

First off, you're not sure who's died yet - you'll only be sure when nighttime comes and the Capitol gives the word - but the entire career pack has been wiped out. The 4's took themselves down, and you killed everyone in 1 and 2 yourself. There are packs under or in the branches of a number of the trees around the perimeter of the cornucopia bog (which is what you've taken to calling it), and to your knowledge, they're all traps of some sort. Maybe five tributes have died from them, you think, though you weren't counting properly. You weren't really thinking at all. You don't know what happened in the bog after you left, but the cannons were going off once every few seconds for almost five minutes, so it had to be something bad.

Your axe isn't the axe you should've taken. There were two - one with a metal handle, and one with a wooden handle. Yours is the wooden one. The other one had holes throughout the handle to keep it light, manageable, throwable - which is probably why you got someone in the back with it - but it's lost in the bog, now. Whoever has the cornucopia has it. The axe you have isn't _bad_, but it's a real axe, all wood and dirtied iron, not a fighting tool. It'd be good for taking out branches and trees and stuff, but not so good for killing people with.

The pack you grabbed really was the best pack on the island. Three throwing knives, a filled water pouch, strips of some kind of jerky (you'd say beef, but you're not District 10 or anything - you couldn't tell one kind of meat from another), dried fruit, iodine, a long coil of rope, bandages, a blowpipe (with a pack of darts), a tent, and a tiny glass bottle of clear liquid clearly marked "POISONOUS: DO NOT TOUCH". You were sort of hoping for night vision goggles, since you've heard those are a thing, but you also really have nothing to complain about. Even the outside of the bag is enviable - dark green with a mesh covering, which you've stuck leaves from the trees and bushes into for extra camouflage. The thing that hit you when you were running was some kind of arrow - one of the kids must be using the bow, unless they're dead too.

You have a plan. It's pretty good, you think, since you DID come up with it and no one else is going to toot your horn for you. The axe, the blowpipe, and the throwing knives change things a little, new ups and downs, but the basic plan is the same. The other tributes, to be frank, fucking sucked at the rope tests in the training center - they could barely climb up, and they certainly couldn't stay up there once they got up. You, on the other hand? You grew up surrounded by trees, hid in them when you played hide and seek with Clint as a child, and when a boy at school broke your heart in eighth grade, and when you wanted to get the drop on the boy who beat up your best friend in the parking lot as a freshman. Clint used to joke that you've been climbing trees since you crawled out of the womb. Fine. Fifteen years of experience to your name. You can scale a tree straight up without a branch to grab onto - the low-hanging willows are almost embarrassingly easy.

Thankfully, you can see that the willows give out as you get further towards the edge of the map (arena. Whatever). It goes from picturesque "what Capitol citizens think a swamp should look like" to an actual swamp - tall, naked Bald Cypress trees and every kind of unmanageable pine sinking happy roots into muddy hills and dirty water. Tall grasses and cattails spring up wherever they can, and there's a perpetual buzzing of far-off insects. You desperately hope the Capitol didn't think to weaponize gnats - they're annoying enough without the ability to kill you. You're going to get as deep into the forest as the Capitol will allow without "turning you back", find the other tributes, and wait the game out. You're very patient.

The night is falling fast. In the distance, a screaming rises up from back towards the cornucopia. You hold still, as though terrified that whatever it is could cross the arena all the way to you if you so much as blink. The screaming grows louder, louder, cuts off with a gurgle. Birds take flight from somewhere in the distance. Your fingers reach under your neckline and pull your token out without you noticing, thumb running over it. It's too long between the screaming and the cannon. Too long.

* * *

The arena's night sky is a deeper blackness of night than you've ever experienced, and there are more stars in it than you realized existed. Then you realize that they probably don't all exist, and that the capitol's just using it as an attractive nuisance or something, to keep tributes engaged and distracted. It's been four hours since you climbed up into the willow, and as you wait, you consider the pros and cons of nocturnal movement. Due to other people sleeping at night, it would be easy to sneak up on other tributes, and to move without being attacked. Unfortunately, it would also mean trying to reset your own biological clock, and besides which, most of your weapons now are ranged. Without night-vision goggles, aiming would become near impossible.

You rub the token in your fingers thoughtfully, stare down at it. It's a pendant, small and cylindrical, carved out of wood and very soft from years of thoughtful rubbing. Above it, situated like a rosary, are two jet black beads. Your father tried to convince you that they were black pearls, and when you were a little girl, you believed it - but now you know they are just carefully shaped bits of rock. It hangs on a leather strap around your neck. It's all very - what was the term? Brutalist? No, maybe not that. You never really paid attention in art classes, anyway. You're no good at them.

The Capitol music begins to blare loudly into the night, and your head jerks up so fast you almost give yourself whiplash. You count the deaths: the boy and girl from 1, the boy and girl from 2, the boy from 3, the boy and girl from 4, the girl from 6, the boy and girl from 9, the girl from 11, the boy and girl from 12. Thirteen dead. More than half in the first day. Eleven of you are still alive in the arena, then - and you know where almost every single one of them is. They've been passing under your tree all day, apparently physically unable to look up. You, obviously, are with yourself - then, there's the big alliance, six people strong, led by the girl from 3 and containing all the 8s and the 10s, as well as your male tribute from 7, situated at the cornucopia - two of the others, the boy from 11 and the boy from 5, were working sort-of together, and were actively looking for you - and, if you're correct, the girl from 5 or the boy from 6 is somewhere on the other side of the arena. That's where the screaming came from. You'd bet on 5. She's dangerous. And she's probably coming this way soon.

You reach through your bag for your rope, and find a small pack of matches that you didn't have before. You tuck them into your shirt thoughtlessly, then tie yourself and the pack to the trunk of the tree. You've got a long day ahead of you.

* * *

The problem with boys is this: they aren't big thinkers. You're not sure at what age they become good at using their brains, because you've met adult men who can think, but boys, other teenagers, are really pretty bad at it.

You wake up to the sound of two idiots getting into a fight, not a full twenty feet from the tree you're in. From the sound of the argument - and it's getting pretty loud - they know you're up there. District 5 says you should be invited into their team - District 11 says you should be killed while sleeping. They're already wrestling. Neither of them has a weapon - it's not like they're trying to kill each other, even - and they've become totally oblivious to the world around them. You reach into the pocket of your pack that you've been keeping the pipe, darts, and poison in. You're not sure what kind of poison it is, but you think you're about to find out.

Pipe kept carefully between your lips, you dip the ends of two darts in the clear liquid. Cap it gently. Place dart one gently in the pipe. Watch the boys wrestle. Ready, aim, blow.

Your aim was always the best - the only person you ever lost a game of darts to was Clint, and to be fair, you're sure he had to be better than you at something. The dart hits 11 in the neck. For a minute, nothing changes, the boys wrestling, shouting, swearing. Then, screaming, screaming like bloody murder, clutching at the neck, panic, shouting, confusion. You ready the second dart. 5 is all over the place, standing, rolling, moving around, but he pauses when he bends over his pack, exposing his back as he looks around for anything that might help. Ready, aim blow. The reaction, this time, is immediate. Screaming, wailing, collapsing, writhing. The first boy has stopped screaming and started foaming at the mouth. You tuck your supplies back into their pocket of your pack, untie yourself and the bag carefully, coil the rope up and back into its place, and listen for incoming trouble. One set of footsteps. Then another, and another.

If it'd been just the District 5 girl, you would've taken her hand-to-hand, but you're not stupid enough to go against the big alliance. You drop to the ground, sweep up one of the two packs, and run like the wind. If the circumstances had been different, you might've gone through the bags, seen which one was better, taken a weapon or something, but there's really no time. You hope you find something good.

* * *

The rest of the day goes by with little eventfulness. You get further out into the arena, find a mostly bare cypress, scale up the side of it like a spider crawling up a wall. You have to get almost 40 feet up before you get any branch covering, but when you do, you just want to rest. You tie yourself to the trunk of the tree and go through your new pack. There's basically no food left - a couple dried apricot slices, which you munch on thoughtfully - and there's no sign of water ever being a part of the pack. There is, however, an awl and a spigot, which you quickly add to the utilities belt you also find deep in the pack, and some kind of head-clipping monocle thing. The glass is green, which you hope means "night vision", but you really have no idea what the damn thing does. You put it on, anyway, attaching the proper clips to your ear and the bridge of your nose. It feels less like a monocle and more like half a pair of glasses, but you can't help that. Nothing else in the bag - you roll it up and discard it onto the ground, and, with some consideration, toss the tent from your bag to the ground, too. You know for a fact you're not going to use it.

There's a camera in the tree, watching you. At first, you were tempted to smash it, but it looks pretty much indestructible, and besides which, you can soothe yourself by talking to it. Which sounds really stupid, but the boredom is palpable. You're going to be here for a while - not too close to the sides of the arena so as to get attacked, not too close to the center so as to get attacked, near tons of other branches of cover to escape into, above the potentially deadly stinging gnats (which, yes, actually do sting - they hung around your calves, and now everything below your knees is burning) - so you might as well get comfortable. Plus, talking to the camera is basically just talking to the viewers. It's important to be likeable.

"I'm not letting myself get worried about the alliance yet," you say, chewing on a slice of dried mango, "they'll probably hunt down the girl from District 5 first, since she's got no loyalty in the group, but if they come after me, I'll be ready."

"I only have four blowdarts left," you say, three hours later. You've gotten into a position of inclining your head slightly towards the camera. "Those are basically guaranteed kills when the poison's on 'em, I think. But the two guys from this morning were the only cannons I've heard all day. So there's still..." you count on your fingers. You'd forgotten about the boy from 6, briefly - the alliance might go after him, too - but there are still "nine other people in the arena, which is still too many for me."

"What kind of fruit is this? Does anyone know?" You wave the tiny pack of dried fruit in front of the camera. "We don't really eat fruit in District 7 - my neighbor has a little apple tree in his yard, out in front? Only it hasn't grown apples since I was three years old. I guess it just ran out. I forget what apples taste like."

"I saw the District 6 boy pass through half an hour ago," you whisper quietly, "I think he's going towards the edge of the arena. If he sends some kind of attack my way, I'll kill him myself."

"I heard a cannon. I think the District 6 boy is dead."

"Or maybe the Big Alliance is getting bored and turning in on itself."

"These gnats are driving me crazy. I have these hideous rashes from the knees down."

"I got a cut on my cheek yesterday, in the bloodbath? And I used a lot of my iodine on that. I don't want to use a lot more of it, because I feel like I'm really gonna need it for water, but I desperately want to clean these rashes. But this entire arena smells like swamp water. I don't think I can even rely on this spigot."

"Is that smoke?"

It is. Billowing black smoke vomiting up from somewhere on the other side of the bog, thin streams at first but growing broader, further, fast across the thick tree covering. There is yelling, then screaming. You are quickly growing tired of the sound of screaming - when it is not bloodcurdling, it is vicariously embarrassing and tedious. Death, though frightening and unfortunate, is nothing uncommon in the lumber mills and yards. You have been acquainted with death your whole life. You don't even have nightmares about it anymore.

The fire spreads rapidly on the other side of the bog, but never crosses over. In the next half hour, two cannons will fire. Probably, that means the Big Alliance is out searching for the three stragglers. You wonder if the District 5 girl set the fire herself, and feel a surge of admiration - and inspiration. You inspect your axe, use it to chop off one of the branches nearby, smile in satisfaction as it slices clean through in one stroke. Take a look at the leaves you stuck in the mesh of your bag. They're still green, but barely. You were thinking about changing them soon.

Five cannons have gone off today. Strong work on an eleven-count. Night falls, and you snuggle up against your tree trunk, under the ropes. You end this tomorrow. You never did 'waiting around' very well.

* * *

The monocle, unfortunately, isn't night vision. It is, as far as you can tell, just a piece of green glass with a bunch of buttons and dials near it. It must have SOME purpose, you suppose, but for now, it's not a purpose you really want or need. You are, just the _tiniest_ bit, disappointed.

Last night, you found out that all three of the tributes you didn't kill yourself were from the Big Alliance, which you guess means it isn't so big anymore. It also means that District 5 and 6 are still wandering around somewhere out there, and they're probably not coming to you. They must want you to hunt them down. Fine. You'll smoke them out yourself.

You refill your water pouch to start the day - you've used awls and spigots enough times to know how to get water out of the trunk of a tree, and a drop of iodine to clean it - and stare at your token for a while. It's still too early for anyone to be moving around, so you're probably safe for another hour or two. You glance to the camera. It's actually still there. Weird. "My best friend made this for me," you whisper to it, "when we were kids. It used to have my name engraved in it, but I rub it too much," you say, and laugh as quietly as you can. "I'm gonna win for him. I will win."

Half of the alliance is left, and they're probably growing testy - both the 10s and one of the 8s are dead, leaving 3, 7, and 8 - might turn against each other soon. The number of tributes that died in the bloodbath this year was frankly ridiculous, and it seems to have doomed you to a short game. Well, doomed the Capitol. It's blessed you. You untie yourself from the trunk of the tree, shove the rope back in your bag, and start working.

You've only been going for a few minutes when an arrow shoots past you, going skyward from the ground, and you almost fall off your branch in shock. You peer over the edge to see the District 6 boy readying another arrow in his bow. He looks up, sees you. Smiles. Waves. "Morning, beautiful," he calls up, "you know, I should thank you for leaving this tent down here. I never would've found you otherwise."

Shit. The tent. You kind of forgot about that.

You turn back to your work, going as fast as possible now - time is of the essence - and as you shove the now-dead leaves from the mesh of your bag under the cage of twigs you've created on the furthest end of your branch, another arrow comes spiraling up, this time uncomfortably close. "Come on, girl, don't be like that," he croons, "you playing hard to get? You want me to climb up there and get you?" Actually, you wouldn't mind. If he tried to climb, and fell conveniently to his death - but then, he's the other tribute who did well on the ropes test. "Hey, girl, come on down. No? You're forcing my hand, woman," he says, playfully, almost testily, and below you, he begins to climb.

You reach into your neckline, pull out your pack of matches. District 6 is too distracted with the effort of climbing to notice you striking a match, bringing it carefully down to the dead-leaf-twig prison. Dead leaves are as satisfactory as old newspaper in a pinch. Blow over them gently, like your father does - the flame flickers, smokes, and burns. The twigs catch. As you vacate the branch, the live leaves begin to burn, too. From the next branch over, you swing your axe experimentally in your hands, and look down at the boy on his way up. He's barely made any progress at all, maybe a yard or two. It'd be nice to strand him halfway up the tree, you guess, and you fan the flames gently.

The entire branch begins to flame up, and with a contented nod at the camera, your axe swings down and hits the branch. It's not quite enough - your branch was the thickest, the sturdiest - and you have to wrest the iron back out to strike it again. The boy screams as the branch drops on him and you hear his body falling, but you are already moving from your tree to the next one over. The swamp floor is particularly dry here, dead leaves and bushes scattering the ground, and you wouldn't be surprised if your entire tree went up. You scramble to your next tree, and then to the next one. The boy is running, now, away from you, and you glance back to the tree. You were right. The flaming branch has infected the trunk. Scramble to the next cypress.

You clamber down and dismount a couple trees over and take to traveling by foot. The cannon hasn't gone off for the District 6 boy, so he probably made it to the water in time. Whatever happened, he's not on fire anymore, or he'd be dead. You walk, fairly slowly - you don't even know where you're going, or why - and try to make sense of the game. You've started a forest fire, probably. You don't know who's in the bog, but it might be safe enough now for you to approach, with only three in the alliance and now turning against one another. It'd be an easily defendable position, more comfortable to sleep in than trees, as well as an attractive nuisance for other tributes -

"There she is!"

Shit. _Shit_.

Three sets of footsteps come thundering towards you, and without turning around to look, you run - not in any particular direction, just away. Animal instincts reign supreme here.

You run aimlessly and madly, splashing through the black rivers and dark mud, through the tall buggy grass and over the hard-packed dirt. The green eyeglass on your face is making weird noises, which is _exactly_ what you need right now - and suddenly, white labels spring up over things as you pass them. BALD CYPRESS, 120 FT, it labels a nearby tree. The screaming cloud of insects you sprint through are HISSING GNATTERS, NONPOISONOUS. You turn your head back as you run to look at your pursuers.

They barely count as an alliance now, you guess, scarred and scraped and bitter as hell. The speed at which they soured as a team actually sort of impresses you - barely halfway through the third day and already - but that doesn't matter as much as the forest fire spreading through the trees behind them. If they're panicking, too, you could stand a chance hand-to-hand. You took out three careers at the same time, for God's sake - but then, that was the bloodbath. That was different. That was territorial, it was about survival...well, you guess this would be survival, too. A different kind of survival.

Maybe if you can get up a tree, you think, you could take them out from a low branch. No time for the blowdarts, but maybe a throwing knife -

Something hits you in the back, knocks you off your feet. You scream on instinct, fall forward, hit the ground hard. The body armor, you guess, protected you from under the pack, but that's not incredibly soothing when you're wrist-deep in mud and you've got three incoming. You don't have time to think, now. What do you have? The awl, at your belt. Right. Grab it, roll onto your side. You can't get on your back.

District 8 gets to you first, and you're ready for him, or at least, as ready as you can be when you're on your side, desperately scrambling to get up. He must've been the one who knocked you down with a javelin or something, because there's no weapon in his hand. He rams a knee into your stomach and you cough like you're going to vomit, wraps his fingers around your throat, pushes your head back. Instinct tells you to batter your hands desperately against his arms - you can hear the hooting calls from the other two, watching from a distance - but you feel the wooden handle of the awl in your right hand. Grab his hair with your left, pull his head to the side, and ram the metal pike straight into his neck.

He screeches and falls to the side, and you scramble out of your pack and onto your feet, grab the axe off the bag. The two stragglers, 3 and 7, stare at you for a second, size you up, covered in iodine and their teammate's blood and poisonous mud, device clipped to your head and axe in your hand, and apparently, make different decisions. The District 3 girl bolts like a rabbit - the boy from your district stares at you, hands shaking, and raises what appears to be a sword. In response, you raise an eyebrow. He's older than you, but he's weak. The only reason you hesitate now is that he's from home.

The boy at your feet is still spluttering, fingers clawing at his neck. You glance down, raise your axe, sever his head from his body. A cannon screams out overhead. District 7 charges.

Three throwing knives on your belt. The first one misses him just barely - he ducks out of the way - but the second one hits him near the clavicle and he cries out, drops his weapon, stumbles, falls to his knees. You pull your axe from the other boy's neck, swing it through the air threateningly. "You know I don't want to kill you," you say softly. It's as close to an apology as you can muster.

He nods silently. You think he is crying - your stomach flips uncomfortably. You hate when people cry. You hate this. This isn't survival. This isn't justifiable. He isn't trying to kill you. Your arms shake. "Fight back," you whisper, "do something."

There is screaming back towards the forest fire, and you look up because God, you wish you were doing anything else. The boy at your feet leaps up, sword in hand, and hits you in the ribcage with it. You stumble - his blow is unexpected, weak - and he gapes at your complete lack of blood. "Body armor," you say, and swing the axe at his neck. It slices cleanly. The cannon fires above you.

You return to your discarded bag, pull the javelin out of the back, and settle down on one knee next to it. The awl is probably too dirty to keep using, now. You've got a single throwing knife, your axe, a couple matches, a few more blowdarts, the iodine - god, you're so ready to use the iodine now - water, beef (?) jerky, your eyepiece...The eyepiece is some kind of technological wonder. Automatic IDer attached to your face. It's a little disorienting, since it only takes one eye into account, but totally useful. You wonder why the boy you took it from wasn't using it. Probably, like you, he didn't know what it was. You take the iodine from your bag, lean against a tree, roll up the legs of your suit, and carefully begin to rub iodine on the painfully reddened skin. It burns, but only in the way iodine always does. The agonizing burning sensation of the damaged skin begins to give way.

You just don't get it, though. The eyepiece said the gnats, though loud, were nonpoisonous, and your legs didn't have any bite marks on them. They were just red and inflamed and hurting badly. You drink heavily from your water pouch, dive into the strips of animal meat. God, you're so tired. The screaming from the direction of the forest fire ceased about half a minute ago, and the fire is spreading fast, now, but you can't force yourself to get up. Instead, your head sets against the trunk of the tree, and you grip your axe hard. You are so tired. You are so tired. You are so tired.

* * *

You startle awake to the sound of a cannon and someone screaming your name. Your hand flies to your neck to find your token - you could've sworn that was Clint's voice - look around desperately. Scramble to your feet. Hours must've passed, because the sky is dark, and you can't smell the fire from any direction. You don't even know how many people are left in the arena. Disoriented, confused, you get to your feet, pat your hip - the one throwing knife remains - and grip your axe. Look for your bag. It's gone.

You consider swearing loudly, then think against it. Whoever took your bag also spared your life, and of the two, you know which one you'd rather have. Besides, you've got your eyepiece, too, and you already used the last of the iodine - other than the rest of the meat, there wasn't much left you could use. Above you, the first chords of the Capitol music begin to play, and you look up - but there's too much tree cover to see what's on the screen. You're fighting in the dark, now, figuratively and literally.

You make your way to the bog.

* * *

While it drives you crazy how environmentally inaccurate the weeping willows are, they give some damn good cover. There has to be someone else in the area, someone who took your bag and knows you're still alive. Maybe they didn't try to kill you in your sleep because they were afraid you could still kill them. You hope so. It'd be a fine legacy to leave behind.

A dart hits you in the shoulder.

You wheel around, looking for the source. The girl from District 3 is perched on a branch a few yards away, frowning slightly, pipe in lips, bottle and new dart in hand. Your bag is on her back - another bag hangs from the furthest edge of the branch, maybe three feet away from her. It's bright orange, and you recognize it immediately. One of the perimeter bags from the beginning of the game. You passed right under it on your way out of the bog, made sure not to touch it. District 3 is doing the same thing now.

She readies her next blowdart. Probably aiming at your legs this time - no body armor there. Fine. Your fingers wrap around your last throwing knife, you breathe twice, and hurl it. She sees the knife coming, twists herself sideways off the branch - but you're not aiming at her, and besides which, you never miss.

The knife hits the bag, and the ensuing explosion wipes out the entire tree. You haul ass for cover, which is to say you throw yourself to the ground and cover your neck with your arms - which turns out to be a good idea, because an enormous splinter of wood hits your arm so hard it almost pierces the body armor, and your hand itself is filled with tiny bleeding spikes. The cannon sounds in the air. You stay where you are.

One more tribute left in the arena. You don't know if it's 5 or 6, but you have an axe with their face's name on it. Wait, no. You're gonna...put your _axe_ in their _face_ and...no, that's too forward. Shit. Okay. You definitely need some kind of snappy one-liner for the ultimate showdown of the games. Slowly, you uncurl yourself and get to your feet, take a look at your hands. You have a lot of experience with splinters, sure, but this is ridiculous. There's blood everywhere, not the gushing, flowing blood of a significant wound but the tiny pinprick dots of splitting skin in a particularly dry winter.

You have to stop thinking about blood. It's making you dizzy. Well. That or all the blood you've lost. Either one.

You approach the remains of the tree, hoping to find your pack, but the sight of the District 3 girl makes you recoil in disgust, stumble away. There's nothing in the bag you want badly enough that you would touch the remains of that body. Instead, you turn away, seriously consider heaving, and gingerly lift your axe from where it fell. Clutch it in both hands. If you look to the bog, you can see the cornucopia, but you can't see the survivor. If it's the boy from 6, this could easily be a trap, him waiting for you to get in the clear. Your footfalls sink deep into the black mud, and your eyes cast down to the murky water before you.

The eyepiece beeps, trills, spins. Then, as you stare into the dark, sloshing waves, sparkling reflections of the Capitol-made stars overhead, it blinks out HYDROFLUORIC ACID, POISONOUS.

Oh, Jesus.

You take high-kneed steps out of the mud, like getting your feet as far away from the ground will halt the damage already done, swivel your head back and forth looking for a path to the cornucopia that could keep you out of the acid.

"I've been waiting for you. You could do me a favor and hurry this up."

You swivel your head towards the noise, towards the figure standing in the dark on the island. Halfway across the bog, the District 5 tribute is twirling a spear like a baton. Your fingers clench around the axe instinctively, but you force your shoulders to relax. Make her underestimate you before you strike, but not too much - she knows you're alive for a reason. "Did you start the first forest fire?" You ask. You're genuinely curious.

She nods amiably. "Did you start the second one?"

You shrug. Your face is tempted to smile, but you do not. "What can I say? I was inspired."

"I knew it would be down to the two of us eventually," she goes on, like she's been preparing a speech (lord knows you would've), "we're two halves of a whole. You have the top half of the body armor, I have the bottom. You took the north side of the stadium, I took the south." She sets her head to the side. "I wish we could've been friends, Natasha."

"Maybe in another life we were," you say softly, but you're looking around the bog. There are stones in the water, protruding out, that you could step on. You could get to her without getting in the water again, maybe. Water. Acid. Whatever. "A better life."

You hear two gentle splashes, glance up to see her standing knee deep. It's weird - knowing what the "water" is now, you half expect to see it bubble or fizzle or burn or _something_ when she steps into it, but nothing happens. "Too bad we only have this one," she says, then smiles. "Come on out, the water's fine."

You shake your head mutely. Play scared.

"I don't want to have to come get you," she says, evenly. "Only one of us is leaving this stadium, District 7. We may as well find out who's going home now."

"You're more confident in yourself than I am," you try. She's got something up her sleeve, and you're not willing to stick around and find out what it is. You need her on your turf, under the tree cover. Maybe, if you run, she'll follow.

"Stop sidestepping like you're going to dart any second," she snaps, "I'm not stupid. I'm not going to follow you."

Oh well. So much for that.

"Listen," she says, "I'll make this easy. You come to the cornucopia. I kill you on fair grounds." Definitely a trick. District 5 isn't even trying. "Come on. There's a rock path and everything over there." She motions at the rocks you were eyeing with your spear. "Do what you want," she says, "you know where to find me."

She turns around. You feel the axe in your hands. She's not too far now, and she's completely unguarded. It's not much of a throwing weapon - it's not aerodynamic at all, not like the first axe, and you're not sure how your aim would be like this - but it's really your best shot at this point. Whatever's on the island is a trap, and without your pack, you can't rely on your food-finding abilities. You were always terrible at that. She steps onto the island, struggling with the mud.

You swing back

* * *

**A/N: **Hey, guys, anyone who's stuck around on this fic for this long. Thanks for reading and your support. If you like this fic, and want to see more of it, please leave a review or something. That'd be cool of you.

Also - you can find this fic on Ao3 as well, usually a chapter ahead, at this link: /works/2109627/chapters/4601322

Thanks for reading! Pepper Potts is up next. Stay tuned.


	5. Pepper Potts

You're seventeen today. For your birthday, your tribute works together to get you a creeping, blackening sense of dread, a manicure, a hot collection of nightmares, a beautiful necklace, certain death.

You were born on the reaping day. Your mother has always called you cursed because of it when you turn your back, like you can't hear her smudging the memory of you. Maybe she loves you - maybe she's scared for you. Maybe she's just scared for herself. When you were born, a streak of black ash was painted across your forehead, left there until your skin sweated it off naturally. She tells you she can still see the imprint sometimes. She tells you many things you wish you did not know. Every year before this one, you have returned from the reaping, and she tells you, happy birthday, your present is life. But she cannot say that, this time.

You are seventeen today. You will be seventeen when you die.

Your mother looks at you with contempt at this, the last time you see her. "I knew this would happen one year," she tells you, practically spits at you. You nod dumbly. You have learned the art of letting her think whatever she wants - you are "obedient" because it makes her easier to manipulate. She is so simple. "Happy birthday, Pepper," she says quietly, "your present is life." She slides something hard and metal over the table to you.

"You owe it to this district to win," your father says. He has never been as harsh as your mother, but he is more passive. He helps you put the necklace on. You don't care about District 8, to be honest. You think you owe victory to yourself. But you don't say this out loud - you just look noble and nod, as though a weighty baton has been passed to you, and now you must carry it to the finish.

Even if you survive, you will never see either of them again. You decided this long ago. Your life will forever be in your hands from now on. From your seat on the train, the world streaming past you, you harden yourself from the core out. There is no time, no space in your mind, for fear, for hopelessness. Black terror tries to swallow your heart, but your resolve rips it away, and you devour it. If it tries again, you will murder it with your bare hands.

You're not a violent person. Really, you're not. You've never hurt anyone - not physically, anyway. You're small - people call you fragile. There's no reason to get buff in District 8, textiles are just a matter of weaving and designing. Delicacy is an art. In the games, it might get you killed. You can't win the games with strength of your arms - but maybe you can do it with the sharpness of your tongue.

* * *

Observant. That's what you are. You watch the other tributes in the training area, trying to stay out of their way, analyze. You were always good at analysis.

As per usual, the careers are the strongest, the most talented with straight-up weaponry, but their survival skills seem weak. None of them can climb the ropes without slipping or falling, and every one of them fails the poisonous berries and roots test. They're vain, too - strutting peacocks, unwilling to extend their allegiance to anyone outside the career circle. It almost makes you smile. Nothing has ever been so easy before.

You're alone in the elevator with the boy from District 2 the first time. "I can't understand why anyone would team up with the District 4 tributes," you say casually, picking at a hangnail. You know he already has.

"It'd be better than teaming up with District 8," he snaps back. You pretend to flinch. "At least they're _competent_."

"Yeah, that's why I wouldn't want to work with them," you start again, "listen, just between the two of us, I've overheard them talking about their plan to win." No, you haven't. You've heard the District 2s. But that's not an important distinction. "They're backstabbers. And, like you said, they're competent. I don't need to get murdered in my sleep."

The door to your floor opens, and you slide out without another word. You don't bother to look back.

* * *

The District 7s are genuinely scary. They pass the rope challenges with no effort at all, do fairly well hand-to-hand, and crush the survival tests under their feet. So when the girl approaches you, you don't really know what to do.

"You're Pepper, right?" She says.

"Um, yes," you reply, "can I help you with something?"

She's chewing on something. "How do you feel," she says around it, "about working with me in the games?"

"An alliance?" She nods. "Do you have anyone else?"

"Jay from District 3," she says, leaning on her axe, "Sorbee from 5. You, me. I'm thinking about that boy from 11 - what's his name?"

"Orbit," you supply helpfully. You made an effort to learn the names of everyone you're afraid of. Orbit is huge, not to mention dangerously clever. You'd put money on him as a victor, if you weren't so determined to win yourself.

"Right, Orbit," she repeats after you, "so? How'd that be, huh?"

This is a trap. You can feel it in your bones. "They're all fighters," you say, "why would you need me?"

"We need a brain," she says, and holds out her hand.

They need an easy kill if everything goes wrong.

You take it.

* * *

Sorbee, District 5, is absolutely killer with a bow. You watch her aim, again and again, at the various moving targets, hit every time, spin and turn with the grace of the wind. When she finishes the simulation, you clap as politely as you can. "Wow, District 7 was wrong," you say, "that's the best shooting I've seen in a long time."

The girl eyes you narrowly, water bottle in hand. "Yvin?" She asks. "What did she say, exactly?"

You falter. "Um, she…" you wave a hand. "Never mind what she said. That was, I mean, that was spectacular, I - "

"_What did she say_, Pepper?" Sorbee says, cutting you off and glaring now. Exactly as planned. You throw a nervous glance over your shoulder, in the direction of Yvin, even now practicing with her axe.

"I…not here," you whisper, "she didn't want you to know."

You tell her in the bathroom. Tell her that Yvin wanted an easy kill in the group, that she'd singled Sorbee out as generally defenseless. Sorbee's face goes red and hot, and you twist your own into something sympathetic and embarrassed. She chugs her entire water bottle, breathes hard out of her nose.

"I knew it," she says finally, "she wants us to turn against each other. She thinks she's so fucking tough. I wonder how she thinks she'll fare against all of us together." She stares at your startled face. "You're too honest, Pepper," she says, "it's going to get you killed."

* * *

It's so easy, once you've planned everything out, once you've watched them all interact. It's like…it's like herding sheep. If sheep were petty and jealous and scared for their lives.

"I heard her say she wanted to turn her teammates against each other."

"She's only pretending to be weak. You can tell. She's going for the nocturnal route."

"He told me he was only working with you because he thinks the rest of your team wants you dead as badly as he does. Watch out."

"I think she likes you. You should see if she'll help you out."

"Just between you and me? I don't think she's told a single truth since she got here."

"The boy from my district? He's weak. I don't want to kill him myself, though. You know how it is with ones from home. If you go for him for me, I can set up something for you."

"It's just good business. If I were as strong as him, I'd go for the career pack first, too."

"We have to stick together. We're from the same District. We can't team up officially or anything, but we can talk about our alliances, can't we? What's yours like?"

The fights start breaking out during practice maybe three days in. The first alliance breaks up on the fifth day. Stragglers start trying to force themselves into new groups. By the sixth day, you don't have to say anything to anyone. They're destroying themselves, and thanking you for it - other tributes approach you with appeals to your knowledge, with gratitude, sometimes with gifts. The boy from District 1 gives you an emerald ring. You have no idea where he got it, but you're not turning it down.

You have no skill to present to the judges when the day comes. You can't throw knives or climb ropes or shoot an arrow or paint. There's no test for interpersonal manipulation. You lay a half-hearted tripwire trap, but your score is low regardless. Which means your only chance for survival is to steal the heart of the Capitol with your, uh, stunning personality. Caesar doesn't make it hard. He smiles and jokes with you, and you beam, and look as pretty as possible, and touch your hair shyly. "Oh, I think we're all getting along wonderfully," you say, "it's going to be so sad tomorrow. I've become very close with everyone else here." Your smile is charming and pearly, your dress is black and sparkling, the necklace from home hangs like a noose from your neck.

Hours later, when you're still scrubbing makeup off your face, there's a knock on the door, and your escort comes darting in. "Pepper," she hisses, like it's an illicit secret, "there's a visitor here for you."

You recognize him as soon as you see his face. Anyone who owned a television would. He looks so much older in person, like he's…well, like an actual _person_ would look. You remember, suddenly, that he's almost 30. "Yes, sir?" You say, keeping an air of politeness around you as you shut the door behind you, "is there something I can do for you?"

"Nah, just a question I want answered," he says, waving the metal hand in front of him casually, "how'd you get my tributes to eat each other alive?"

You glance back to the door, then around the empty hallway. Suddenly, you feel very trapped. "I'm sorry, what?" You ask, the air sucked out of your lungs. You feel like you have to catch your breath.

He shrugs. "Yeah, how'd you split 'em up?" He asks. "I mean, they were practically seamed together when they first got here. Walking in unison like a human centipede. Or, like, the creepiest marching band members this side of Twin Peaks." He glances at you. "Oh, right, you're…from the Districts. Nevermind anything I just said. It's Capitol stuff. Point is, my tributes are at each other's necks, and I wanna know how you did it."

"I didn't do anything. What could I have done?" Being indignant might work. You cross your arms in front of your chest.

"Yeah, that's what I wanna know." He mimics the action, leans against the wall. "C'mon. I'm not even mad. I'm impressed."

You stare at him. Size him up. You don't want to lie to him, you realize. You don't want the last thing you're remembered for to be your ability to lie. "They were vain and shallow," you say at last, "people like that will believe anything that makes them feel more important." Specifically, you told both of them that the other one was so scared of them, they were launching an assassination plot of some kind. Easiest way to break up a budding friendship.

He nods sagely. "You're scary as hell, kid," he says, "if we were in the same game, you would've killed me faster than I could blink."

"How did you know it was me? That turned them on each other."

"Lucky guess." He shrugs. "They hate each other, and they absolutely love you. It was pretty easy to follow the trail. Plus, I've been watching you." He taps his temple with a finger. "The thinkers are usually the ones who live. I'm betting on you, kid."

You feel your shoulders loosen. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

"That'll be all, Ms. Potts."

* * *

The Capitol doesn't like you much, it turns out - your smile isn't charming enough, or your arms aren't freckled enough, or whatever it is that they care about up there. But it turns out that the favor of the Capitol isn't as life-and-death as the favor of every other tribute in the ring. On the first day, Sorbee carries you to cover and passes you one of the better bags. On the third day, one of the District 4s finds you out in the tundra, shows you how to make a fort out of snow to stave off the cold. On the seventh day, Orbit kills three other tributes and spares you. On the nineteenth day, it's just you and the girl from 9. She doesn't expect you to slit her throat. But then, you don't care about expectations.

All your plans went off without a hitch. Sorbee and Yvin absolutely shredded each other before the first week was up. The careers devoured each other. You only ever had to kill two people - everyone else killed each other for you. You like to think of it that way, anyway, or you have trouble sleeping.

You can't stand the cold anymore. As soon as fall comes, you wrap up in furs and blankets and go into hibernation. Cold winds rattle you to your bones, bring back that black gnawing fear, and you are too weak to rip it away now.

Four years later, Tony tells you that the emerald ring was from him. You tell him you wear it to remember the games. He suggests that you throw it down a well. "There's no reason to remember the games," he says, lying on your couch, "us victors practice forgetting, Pepper, there's nothing worth being remembered."

"Maybe," you say, and pull the blankets closer to yourself. The wind rips at the windows of the center, and just the sound hurts to listen to. Thank god there's a record playing over it. You can't stand winter. Not the temperature, not the noise, not the drifting, perfect heaves of snow. It makes you want to vomit. "But it's a good reminder. It makes me want to protect my wards and…I don't know. It's very nice, though," you add, nodding convincingly, "very nice. Thank you for giving it to me."

"You're very welcome, miss Potts," he says deliberately, "and if you ever change your mind and want it melted down, just let me know." He stares out towards the windows - or, more specifically, the curtains drawn thick over the windows. "So how do you feel about the tribute? Good win with him, by the way."

"I think Coulson's going to be just fine," you say, carefully. "He's got his head right on his shoulders."

Ten years later, he asks you to marry him. You tell him you'll think about it.


	6. Peggy Carter

District 12 has only ever had one victor. Years ago - what, twenty-nine years ago? Long before _you_ were born - the first victor of the District rose out of the ashes of the coal mines in the first quarter quell. Everyone in District 12 knows Steve Rogers. His portrait is hung on every street corner, in every window of the stores and shops that populate some of the nicer city terrain, in every classroom, in every miner's workstation, in the mayor's office, in the post office, in your home. When you were little, you told every teacher you had that you wanted to be the next Steve Rogers. Without fail, they told you it would really just be better if you wanted to marry Steve Rogers, like all the other little girls, and to stop hitting the boys with sticks, Peggy, that's not how we play with the other kids. You never understood why the boys were allowed to pull your hair and you weren't allowed to hit them with a sizable piece of wood back, but they were, and you weren't, and those were the rules of school.

You didn't stop hitting the boys with sticks, understand. You just got sneakier about it.

But there's no Steve Rogers who comes after Steve Rogers. One victor who hasn't come home in more than twenty-five years is the only thing your district has going for it. Your best friend's little brother says to you, once, that Steve Rogers probably isn't even real, that the Capitol probably made him up to give District 12 hope where there was none. You punch him in the face. You don't care that you're ten and he's eight. Maybe you're so angry because it's the quarter quell, because four of your friends were summoned onto the reaping platform instead of just two. You want to believe that Steve Rogers, who _will be their mentor_, will fix everything. You want to believe that one of them will _live_.

They don't. Not a single one of them.

When Tony Stark graces the reaping platform of District 12, you are ten years old, and you want him dead. He does not deserve this, you think. Strats or Yinsen or Balto or Feuge deserved this. Not him, not with his career pack face, not with his fake arm, not with the way he shakes under the gaze of your entire district. You almost want him to break down. You want him to cry. When he looks out over the crowd to the pedestals, you think he almost does. His real arm shakes. The metal one stays fixed in place.

But you don't lose faith. At least, not until your own reaping. Not until you're fourteen and scared, legs bloodless and tingling, and your name rings out of a smile that spreads up and down rather than wide, teeth and gums relishing the sound of your death sentence. But you stand on your own, walk on your own, slowly, eyes wide, face white. You stand on the stage next to Ms. Williams, feel your stomach sink lower as the boy who's called is even younger than you.

It's not so much fear as it is…inevitability, you guess. You have never been so afraid that you stopped caring about things. Now, you mostly just feel…hungry. And curious. "Steve Rogers is our mentor, right?" You ask your Escort, trailing her up and down the train, "when are we going to meet him? Is he still alive, even? Why hasn't he come back to the District? Were you his escort, too?" The last one doesn't seem like a rude question until you ask it. But hey, she is pretty old.

"You will meet your mentor tomorrow morning," Ms. Williams snaps, "until then, please hold back on your questions. Oh, and Miss Carter," she adds, throwing the comment over her shoulder, "be prepared for the worst. High expectations are the truest cause of disappointment, you know."

He's not like in the pictures at all. You resist the temptation to let your last sliver of hope float away, and stare down at your breakfast hard. You think about anything other than the man in front of you, probably forty-some years old, thin, wispy, leaning hard on a cane like his life depends on it. Loca, the boy tribute, spits in something that might be terror and is supposed to be anger, immediately tries to fight. You stare hard at your egg. You've never had an egg before. You're not even sure how you're supposed to eat it. It's going everywhere on your plate.

"_You're_ Steve Rogers?"

Your mouth is so full of egg. You glance up at the shriveled form, catch his eye, look down again. Wait, tentatively, for an answer.

"Yes," he says, and your stomach clenches like a fist, "I'm Steve Rogers."

"You don't _look_ like Steve Rogers."

"I hate to break it to you, champ, but the 'Steve Rogers' you're thinking of doesn't _exist_." The voice is harsh, dry. It's as angry as Loca's, but it's a colder anger, softened and sweetened and fermented over years of bullshit. You recognize that tone of voice. You'd recognize it anywhere. "He's propaganda that the Capitol made up. I'm the only real Steve Rogers, and I look exactly like I look."

You break eye contact with your egg to stare at him, and he looks back. His eyes are violently blue, the kind of blue you read about eyes being in penny novelettes, and they run you through like a javelin in the chest. You don't break contact, this time. You watch him like a hawk. He _is_ Steve Rogers. And he's…tiny.

"Then who _really_ won the first quarter quell?" Loca snaps, and Steve's head swivels back to him. The moment is lost. You shovel the remains of your egg into your mouth while he's not looking.

"Me," he sighs. You wonder if he needs help with his chair.

Loca explodes. He's only twelve. Twelve year olds are notoriously bad at controlling their emotions. You remember being twelve with no fondness, yourself. "Bullshit!" He hits the table on his way out of his chair. "There's no _way_ you could've won it, you're bullshitting us! Look at you!" You wipe your mouth and chin with a napkin and glance between the two, Loca red-faced and ready to blow, Steve tired and apparently completely bored. "You're, you're tiny, my _grandmom_ could beat _you_ up!"

Steve sighs. "I have no doubt. Now, are you going to finish your breakfast or not?"

Loca shrieks, storms out of the train car, and the old man carefully lowers himself into his chair, reaches for his coffee. You watch him carefully. You need to think. And to think, you need to eat. It's quiet for a minute, and then, delicately, you ask, "may I have another egg, please?"

He startles, blinks like he forgot you were still there. Sighs, shrugs, waves a hand at the table. "Help yourself. The Capitol's got no shortage."

You do. You have at least three eggs, because you've never had an egg before but today you found out that you really like eggs, try to retain some semblance of dignity as you plow through them, and think hard. Steve Rogers _is_ real. He's sitting directly to your right, drinking coffee and pretending to read the newspaper. But you've seen photographs of Steve Rogers. When he was young, he was…broad-shouldered. It's like his entire bone structure's been changed. You wonder, something sick creeping into your stomach, what exactly the Capitol did to him. Unless…he isn't Steve Rogers. Or maybe he's a different…or…

You stare up at him. "You _are_ Steve Rogers, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Like the one in all the pictures and on the posters and everything?" Maybe the other Steve Rogers is like a…a model, you think to yourself, like a model that they dressed up to be him.

"Yes." The sinking feeling in your stomach again. They did something to him.

"How come you looked so much bigger when they took the pictures, and you're so much smaller now?" You don't care how stupid it sounds. You're retroactively scared for him. "Did something happen?"

He smiles, but it's a flat, tired smile. "No," he says, and your stomach loosens it's agonizing grip, "nothing happened." He shrugs. "But I was never that big guy. I've always been this small."

Fuck. Every time understanding is just within your grasp, it's torn away. You stare at him, hard, stare at your egg. "So how come you look so big in those pictures and things?" You look at him again. He raises an eyebrow. You think he's…amused. "I mean," you say, waving a hand in front of yourself, "I understand how in the _drawings and paintings_ they could just draw you with more muscles and, and things, but there's _photographs_," you emphasize, "and you look big in _those_, too."

He shakes his head, looks off to the wall, turns his gaze back on you. "Photographs can be fixed, the Capitol has technology _designed_ to fix photographs. To change the way things look."

Of course, you realize, and instantly feel stupid. Of course it's all edited. How gullible were you? Ugh, you feel so…

But he still won.

The thought shoots through your brain like lightning, and all of a sudden, you're thinking again. Okay, sure, he's scrawny and weak and he looks like he'd fall over if you pushed him, but he _won_. You're not even as tiny as he is, but you are pretty small, and that means that if he could win…so could you. You could _survive_. He could teach you. You stare up at him, breathe in deep. "So how did you win? I mean, no offense," you add quickly, in case he was, uh, sensitive about the muscles thing, "and obviously, you're not who you were when you were eighteen, but I don't think you beat the games with brute force or anything. So…" you shrug, helplessly, stare at him like a lifeline, "how did you do it?"

To his credit, Rogers looks startled. He blinks, like he didn't expect anything important to come out of your mouth, shakes his head like he's trying to wave your question off. "Luck, I guess. I don't know." He's lying. You can tell he's lying, and something in your stomach gets hot and angry. "It was a long time ago, and no tributes between then and now have ever listened to my advice before."

Why the fuck is he holding out on you? 'Doesn't remember'? Bullshit. "I don't think that's the kind of thing you forget," you snap, and lean forward across the table. "I know I haven't got much of a chance, Steve, but I bet you didn't have much either, and _I don't want to die_."

He stares down at you. And he sighs.

And he teaches you.

He asks you what you're good at. You aren't sure, at first, but you find out fast - your aim is killer with a bow and a slingshot, and you're faster than the other tributes, and your pain tolerance is through the roof. And you learn quickly, picking up skills at a rocket pace. You learn how to climb the ropes, and you get good at poison identification. You tell Steve over dinner, and he nods approvingly, pushes food towards you. He tells you he's worried about how skinny you are. You tell him you're more worried about how skinny _he_ is. He snorts a repressed laugh, and you take a moment to be impressed with yourself. You'd never even seen him smile before.

He teaches you to be underestimated, to play like you're too weak to be a threat and to hide far from the cornucopia. As long as you know what you can and can't eat in the stadium, he tells you, you can pretty much survive several weeks while everyone else tries to kill each other. To avoid contact with other players for as long as possible. To be as completely self-reliant as possible. To be well-liked.

You never really bother with being well-liked. One of the boys from the upper districts "compliments" your backside on the first day, and you treat him to a personal interview with your knuckles. The trainers think it's hilarious, but none of the other tributes do, and they leave you with entirely too much personal space. So straight off, you fail at being underestimated and being nice, which gives you a heavy sigh and a face palm from your mentor. He tells you to at least be well-liked by the Capitol and garner _their_ favor, if no one else's. You prepare for the interview.

Caesar is so toothy and friendly, you're almost afraid of him - but you've also never felt so beautiful in your life. In District 12, everything you wear is brown or grey. Here, your dress is black and gold and red, your face sculpted and shaped into something unnatural and doll-like, your hair falling perfectly around you. The attention is so intensive, thousands of people there just to see you, and maybe it goes to your head and maybe you get a little ahead of yourself and maybe you boast. "I know that District 12 has a history of…of failure," you say, staring out and above the crowds, "I know that people assume we'll lose by default. I know that…that we haven't got much of a chance, either of us."

"No, don't say that," Caesar starts, but you cut him off.

"But I don't care whether I've got a chance or not," you say, and the microphone's back in your face, "I don't care about the history of my district. I'm not going to lose. There's too much riding on this." Silence. You stare out. "Thirty years we've gone without a victor," you say, "thirty years too long. I owe it to my District." You look at Caesar. "And I owe it to myself."

When you get off stage, you think Steve is going to slap you. "What did I say," he starts, slowly, "about being underestimated?"

"That it's a weapon on it's own," you mumble, downcast. "Look, Steve, I'm sorry, but I already punched someone, it's not like talking big is going to push the tributes one way or another on me -"

"I was wrong," he says, and you practically spit.

"What?"

"The Capitol loves you," he says, and rests a hand on your shoulder, "everyone loves an underdog. I don't think anyone's going to _bet_ on you, but everyone really likes your spirit. And you didn't get camera shy, that's good, and you had good posture." You give him a blank stare. "It sounds stupid, I know, but it matters to some people," he adds, shrugging, "subconsciously, I mean." He looks at you, that bright, intense stare burning through you, and you stare back. He smiles, looks at the ground. His hand slides off your shoulder. "Yeah. You're gonna be alright, Carter," he says, smiling, and under all the makeup, you can feel yourself blush with pride.

But tomorrow always comes, and with it, the fear of death strong in your heart.

"I'm going to die," you say, as steadily as you can, as Steve taps a finger on his cane and sizes you up.

"You have as good a chance of surviving as anyone else in that arena," he snaps, but you're not sure he believes it. "Come on. District 12 needs you to win. _I_ need you to win," he adds, and his voice softens. His hand moves awkwardly at your arm, rests on your bicep uncomfortably, and you can't help but smile. And then you feel your face fall again.

"What do I do?" You stare up at him. "What do I do if I die alone? What do I say? Who do I pray to?"

He drops his eyes to the floor, sighs, looks back up at you, intensity of his gaze burning through your skull. "You won't be alone," he says, with finality. "Peggy Carter, you are not a fragile flower of a girl with pretty hair and pretty eyes. You are a fucking _dragon_. The arena is yours to take. Light that bitch on fire."

Behind you, the countdown begins. Your stomach twists, and you stare down at your hands, at the thin rope bracelet you were allowed to wear into the stadium, back up at him. Smile. "I intend to," you say. "When I was a kid, I always wanted to be the next Steve Rogers."

He smiles, shakes his head. "You don't need to be the next Steve Rogers," he says, "you're going to be the first Peggy Carter."

It's a mountain biome. Fine. You grew up in District 12 - you know mountains. Steve's advice rings harsh in your ears, and instead of running for the cornucopia, you run for cover, hide just out of sight - when a boy runs past with a bag and a machete, you lunge onto his back, choke him to death with your bare hands, loot the body, run. Which, okay, isn't _exactly_ what Steve told you to do, but look, if you did everything the way Steve did it, you might not survive. His game was a quarter quell, after all. They do things differently in those.

You hike out as far as you can towards the edge of the map, stake out in a cave. It hasn't got much, but there's a freshwater spring and only one direction for enemies to be coming from, which makes it about as safe as any camping spot is going to get.

You don't, uh, you don't expect the mountain goats. The shockingly violent, territorial mountain goats. You like goats, but these aren't real animals - at least, that's what you tell yourself when you set their wool on fire and send them running after getting rammed in the hip.

The next day, there are more goats. That night, there are lions. The day after that, wounded, tired, you collect up as much water as you can and move on. The Capitol is trying to move you - maybe you're too close to the edge of the map, because the day after _that_, there's an avalanche. You get up in a tree and live - barely - and loot the bodies you find crushed between the boulders. There's a bow among them. Slowly, your chances of survival tick up.

Your shoulder hurts too much to shoot properly, still throbbing from lion claws. It's not technically a lion, you think to yourself, barely pulling yourself up a tree, it's a cougar. But it might as well be your death sentence. You're sure it can smell your blood, and now, with the paranoia that's starting to set in, the way you twitch every time you hear a rock skid or a distant braying, you're sure you're going to die.

Help comes silently on a parachute, a tin of soup and a box of matches. _Don't give up yet, Dragon. There's only ten more in the arena. -S_

You eat your soup, and look at the tin and its parachute, and down to the ground around your tree. Poisonous fruit lies abundant beyond your feet. You look back to the parachute, and wonder if any of the other tributes like berries.

Five of them fall for it. _Five_. You didn't even leave a fake note. Nightshade kills in seconds, so you're screwed when you hit the group of three, but at that point, you're desperate, and you shoot the other two with an arrow point-blank. It is _so easy_ it makes you shake. You don't even realize they were the last ones in the stadium until you hear music blaring over you, and there are lights, and you drop your bow and clutch at your shoulder. You will never make this go away, you realize, staring at the corpses in front of you. You will never forget this.

You are ashamed.

You're alive - that should be good enough, shouldn't it, you come home alive and the District finally has two victors to its name. But you come home alone, and suddenly it doesn't feel like it's worth it. You ask Steve to come with you, to show the District that he's real and to out the Capitol on their fixing schemes, but he just sighs and shakes his head, like you're a child who will one day understand why all things die. He wants to protect you from the world, you think. You hate to tell him he's already failed.

There is no safety for you anymore. The sound of gravel crunching under foot sends you scrambling for cover, the distant sound of animals mating in the night wakes you in sweat and panic. You are lucky enough not to dream, most nights, because you barely sleep. You will never feel safe again. You walk on pins.

When you get older, you begin to see why Steve avoided giving you advice. You teach your tributes as best as you can, show them how to win as best you can. They go to the arena. They die. Sometimes they die in the first hour, sometimes on the last day, but always, always, they die. You are racked with guilt, with grief. Steve tells you, gently, to give up on them. You tell him your District deserves better than that. That it deserves better than you. He tells you no one deserves better than you, that you are the greatest thing the District could ask for, that you are the dragon the Capitol should be afraid of. You wish you could believe him.

He tells you, on your nineteenth birthday, that you remind him of a boy he once loved, and you do not know what to say. So you say nothing, and drink to forget.


End file.
